Social Media

There's a new YouTube jukebox on the scene that combines Last.fm, Billboard and YouTube to create a playlist builder that should come in handy during all those parties you have planned this weekend. Or, you know, those lonely nights during which you're ruminating about all the parties no one invited you to.

According to TorrentFreak, Tubeify is the brainchild of Tomas Isdal, a University of Washington PhD student who was growing weary of the way music is presented on YouTube.

“I came up with the idea roughly a year ago when YouTube signed an agreement with Time Warner, which meant that they now have license agreements with the 'Big 4' labels,” Isdal tells TorrentFreak.

Despite the abundance of music on the video-sharing site, as we all know, the listening experience isn't all that great. Videos stop playing while you're searching for the next track, and there's a ton of poor-quality clips out there, cluttering up the space. And, despite its revamped music page, functionality and playlist-building haven't ever really been YouTube's strong points.

Tubeify aims to remedy those issues. With a search functionality yoinked from Last.fm's API, it's pretty easy to find the tracks you want — and you can listen to music while searching (score). While searching, you can "Pin" songs you like to a sidebar for safekeeping until you figure out which playlist to add them to. Playlist building is also super easy, utilizing the drag-and-drop method.

Since YouTube has such an abundance of music (which isn't all legally uploaded, but I digress), I was able to find pretty much anything I wanted to listen to — even Jeffrey Lewis's "Couldn't Take It Anymore" (which is a rad song). One can even add some historical levity to playlists by checking out Tubeify's integration with Billboard, which (thanks to Billboard's API) provides users with playable charts spanning back to 1964.

Users can also share tracks to Facebook, Twitter and e-mail — I for, one, shot off an e-mail to my friend Andi after discovering Lewis's jam, since we've been trying to figure out the title for the last year or so.

The service is currently invite-only, but TorrentFreak has a ton of invites at the ready. Once you snag one, you'll have to sign in through Facebook or Google.

I won't be ditching my MOG account anytime soon — this is a browser-only tool and I love my mobile apps — but I could definitely see pulling up Tubeify at a party. Especially one replete with music snobs who are really into rough cuts and old jams.

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